[HN Gopher] Today is Y Combinator's 17th birthday
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Today is Y Combinator's 17th birthday
Author : ElectronShak
Score : 371 points
Date : 2022-03-12 09:37 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| redstarpa wrote:
| Watching YC grow over the years has changed (good and bad)
| everything we touch, see, hear and taste was bc of the 'YC
| effect'.. directly and indirectly. From myself 7x applicant to
| getting in YC SUS F19 to meeting /connecting with 100s of
| founders from around the world thru YC.
|
| To me it's the best community in the world to share ideas,
| knowledge, make friends and collaborate. Rarely, a community this
| unique can sway a market in under a Twitter minute.
|
| You if haven't applied, please do. not once but everytime you
| can. Your idea you have in your head right now, can change
| humanity's outcome.. maybe it's a cure for cancer or the next do-
| dad we'll buy at Target. Just apply and see what happens..
|
| Yeah it's disheartening to get that email, the same one I got 7
| times. But understand, they're watching each of us to who tweet
| out our ideas, our dreams.. You'll never know who'll email you
| out of the blue to apply (I've heard a few stories Abt this).
|
| Here's what I'm doing to change #rideshare for the better.
|
| https://Fure.Cab - Where the world gets free rides.(tm)
|
| Rudy Ferraz- founder/biz dev, deaf family man, who likes cars,
| tech, dance, music, and the stars. linkedin.com/in/rudyferraz,
| Rudyferraz.com, Twitter- @rudyferraz
|
| Roby Devassy- founder/tech, family man who likes tech, sports and
| quiet time. linkedin.com/in/robertdevassy
|
| https://fure.cab/ Driver Wait list
| -http://bit.ly/FUREDriversSignupWaitList - 700k signups Riders
| Wait list -http://bit.ly/FURERidersWaitList -100k signups
| YCombinator - https://www.startupschool.org/users/A5GA-06GE9h4Qw
| Twitter - https://twitter.com/furecab Angel -
| https://angel.co/company/fure-cab (RUV info DM us) r/ -
| https://www.reddit.com/r/fure_rideshare/ CrunchBase -
| https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/fure
|
| YouTube: https://youtu.be/gdsbp_jID7M
| https://youtu.be/S898LDdDSnQ https://youtu.be/4TGIRhS9fVg
| usednet wrote:
| Almost an adult!
| onion2k wrote:
| YC has been instrumental in some _incredible_ successes. It 's
| been very cool to see people I know go through the accelerator,
| scale up, and eventually exit. Long may it continue.
| andygcook wrote:
| For anyone curious, this is the general area PG screenshot for
| the map: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3815449,-71.1244449,16z
|
| This is about a ten minute walk from Harvard Square near an area
| known as the Radcliffe Quandrangle.
| 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote:
| Happy Birthday!
| torotonnato wrote:
| Happy 0x11, see you at 0x111
| giovannibonetti wrote:
| "See you" doesn't apply here. All of us will be dead in 160
| years
| CPLX wrote:
| All but one.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Oh, I don't believe dang's the only bot here!
| torotonnato wrote:
| I bet a San Junipero-style mind upload startup will happen
| here well before 256 years have passed
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| We are hoping for a YC year that solves that issue :)
| merrvk wrote:
| Bet you're fun at parties
| makach wrote:
| Happy birthyday, YC!
| whitesilhouette wrote:
| Happy birthday
| mybbor wrote:
| YC has been an invaluable resource for me.
|
| An acquaintance was in the 3rd batch of founders and turned me on
| to the ecosystem and community here. Around that time, I was a
| few years out of high school and working for minimum wage at a
| pizza shop.
|
| I was experimenting with web design, making a few extra dollars
| running google ads on phpBB forums, and learning to code in the
| process. I never realized my geeky side could translate into
| something entrepreneurial until I started spending time here.
| Tracking the progress of my friend and this community planted a
| seed that turned into a dream of someday being a founder.
|
| Today, my two business partners and I have been running a
| successful software business for almost a decade. We were
| distributed before it was mainstream. We're in the WordPress
| space and have a team of 20+ people all over the globe. I've had
| the opportunity to travel, meet investors, smoke cigars with
| business heroes, sleep in if I want to, and enjoy an exciting and
| fulfilling life.
|
| I still find myself regularly googling about issues that arise in
| my company with "hacker news" appended to the end of the query.
| The stories here helped us navigate a very stressful M&A process
| and countless other "business stuff" hurdles that we encountered
| over the years (ie business insurance "hacker news").
|
| YC provided me with direction and inspiration when I was
| floundering around in my early years. The simple ideas that you
| don't need an MBA to start a business and being an odd duck is a
| valuable entrepreneurial trait were life-changing. The community
| and discussions here are where I come to learn and be inspired. I
| sincerely hope it continues to be that for myself and others for
| many more years to come.
|
| Thanks YC!
| lquist wrote:
| I was rejected by YC and still point to them (namely, the combo
| of PG's essays and HN comment wisdom) as the greatest single
| source of startup advice as I've built a company in the 9-10
| figure range. Thank you YC! You have done so much for the startup
| community!
| [deleted]
| ArtWomb wrote:
| YC SUS Winter 2020 alum (enjoying the current "build sprint").
| Discovering new startup wisdom everday. Here's to YC's next 17
| years, and what 2040 will bring ;)
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| I love YC.
|
| Even though I'd never apply and thus never get in because of _my_
| preconceived notions about _YC 's_ preconceived notions (too
| "old"?, proud Dad of a bunch of homeschooled kids, mostly solo
| founder (well, I've got kids who code!), building a social/chat
| app way outside of the Bay area echo chamber, and not toeing any
| particular political lines (hey, I'm a coder so I'm allowed to
| recursively nest parens -- don't tread on me), and even if I'm
| doxing myself a bit with this comment!), YC and PG (through his
| essays, Hackers and Painters, and his genuinely kind and sincere
| approach to everything, even with people who are on the opposite
| side of the political aisle, like me) have taught me _so_ much
| about how to be a force for good in this strange and weird world.
|
| PG seems to truly live out Jesus' wisdom and the Golden Rule. He
| wisely avoids getting dragged into political discussions, and the
| HN moderators wisely steer even very wild discussions away from
| flame wars. For my next act, I'd like to build a social app that
| scales up the same sort of non-partisan (or multi-partisan!)
| active, intelligent discourse that occurs here, even if there
| are, sadly, very few dang's in the world.
|
| I would like to say a very, very warm and very sincere _thank
| you_ to pg, dang, and the rest of the YC team who make it
| possible to still have a civil, mostly uncensored, and wide-
| ranging conversation, and has helped so many great startups get
| off the ground, both inside _and_ outside of YC with things like
| the SAFE and the startup-school opened to all, proving to VC 's
| how things can and should be done, and just pursuing the most
| interesting startups, period. If I truly thought I had a chance
| given my coloring so far outside the SF political lines, I'd
| apply in a heartbeat!
|
| Much love from someone deep in the heart of Texas. Keep up the
| incredibly awesome work.
| me_me_mu_mu wrote:
| Good luck bro
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| Not sure if you're joking, but I'll take it. ;) Need every
| bit of luck I can get!
| me_me_mu_mu wrote:
| Not joking. I'm also working on a social app, and I think
| it's great when I hear other tinkerers speak about their
| passionate work.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| PG has expressed on Twitter multiple times he loathes the HN
| culture and always angry Californians. Probably that is why he
| stopped posting here as well, at least under his name.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| jedwhite wrote:
| If you're making something people want, just have a go and
| apply. YC says it outright in their motto. That's really all
| that matters.
|
| The application itself can help your own thinking about what
| you're building, so it's worth doing just for that.
|
| Great products come from all sorts of unconventional
| backgrounds, precisely because the people who made them were
| from an unexpected background. Some of the best new ideas come
| from the need to solve a problem that mainstream products don't
| cover, or from an insight that someone in the mainstream would
| never have.
|
| Airbnb's founders weren't conventional startup founders. They
| were struggling and needed to pay their rent.
|
| Also, 1000% agree on the sentiment and thanks to YC for the
| community here. HN is one of the blessings of the current day
| web.
| [deleted]
| jedwhite wrote:
| PS there is a section in this talk by Dalton Caldwell from YC
| on 'how to create luck' (in the context of applying to YC).
| It's really great on just this topic:
|
| https://www.ycombinator.com/library/6t-how-to-apply-and-
| succ...
|
| There's also a separate short talk on creating luck that has
| an interesting story about how Brex started, and also about
| how sometimes you need an "outsider's philosophy":
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmEyx9TEkRw
|
| These helped my thinking. The application is a helpful way to
| think about your startup even if you don't submit it. And
| once it's done, you might as well submit anyway :)
|
| Good luck!
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| This is awesome -- thank you Jed! Now I'm really seriously
| considering it!
| jedwhite wrote:
| Yeah, just do it! Good luck with applying, and with
| building your startup. If I can ever help with feedback,
| or anything else, just reach out (details on my profile
| here).
|
| Also, check out YC Startup School. That's where the video
| was from. It really helped our startup, it has great
| resources, and a really friendly and encouraging
| community to get feedback on what you're building.
|
| https://www.startupschool.org/
| robfitz wrote:
| I got into the fifth batch (s07) and remember my other startup
| friends staging an intervention to dissuade me from accepting
| because "the valuation is really bad."
|
| Interesting to see how long even the industry insiders failed to
| take YC seriously. And then once it was working, they flipped
| immediately to complaining that YC was too powerful and too
| influential (unbeatable network effect, seed/A valuation
| inflation, and so on).
|
| I also remember the constant naysaying about scalability and
| batch size. Our batch was ~19 companies. People kept naysaying,
| "Well this model is fine for now, but it will never work past 20
| teams."
|
| PG would always reply with something like, "Yeah, they said that
| when we had fewer than 10 teams also. We aren't thinking too far
| ahead; each batch, we just find the next bottleneck and solve it,
| and we'll see how far that gets us." Which evidently got them
| pretty far. A lovely example of doing things that don't scale.
| enra wrote:
| I was in the S12 batch "the batch that killed the YC model"
| with 80+ teams I think. After that they switched to the group
| model where the batch is divided in to groups and each group
| has specific partners. In our batch is was definitely
| challenging when you often got a randomly assigned partner each
| week and most of the time they didn't know who you are or what
| you do. However, Coinbase, Instagram, Zapier etc came out of
| that batch.
|
| For me as first time founder YC was super helpful and they
| really drill the right kind of mindset for you. Build product,
| talk to users. The stuff they tell you is often very simple but
| I think lot of founders naturally complicate the startup
| building and focus on the wrong things because they think thats
| what should do. YC cuts through all the bs and just makes you
| focus on the few actually important things
| edouard-harris wrote:
| > However, Coinbase, Instagram, Zapier etc came out of that
| batch.
|
| (By Instagram, I imagine you meant Instacart?)
| dsugarman wrote:
| Yes Instacart, although Kevin Systrom did visit us for one
| of the weekly YC dinners to share his wild startup story.
|
| Easily the most memorable summer of my life. I agree that
| even though we were told everything was falling apart at
| our batch size, it was arguably the best batch of YC, there
| was some real magic.
| codingdave wrote:
| Your success and the success of YC doesn't make your friends
| wrong. YC has improved over time, both in valuations and
| processes. Even today, it is not perfect, and there is a
| significant survivorship bias used to describe its success as
| the unicorns are called out, but I don't hear much talk about
| how all the founders do - what is the median result of all YC
| companies, for example? (I honestly don't know that answer... I
| would love to see it because don't see such overall stats.)
|
| YC absolutely has accomplished something, as have some of its
| companies. I don't want to be dismissive of that. But we should
| acknowledge that it embraces and encourages the high-risk/high-
| reward model, which should be entered into with open eyes.
| nxmnxm99 wrote:
| What? The entire industry of venture capital is based on a
| tiny percentage of companies absolutely exploding. The point
| is, compared to everyone else, YC does it much better - the
| gulf between YC (which is on track to have multiple $100b
| portfolio companies) and second place accelerators like
| Techstars (who have, at best, a couple of single digit
| unicorns) is astronomical.
| codingdave wrote:
| > The entire industry of venture capital is based on a tiny
| percentage of companies absolutely exploding.
|
| Exactly. Which means the risk level to founders is high.
| Because it is a roulette wheel where the VCs are the house,
| and the founders are the gamblers. With TechStars vs. YC
| being akin to the difference of the wheel having one zero
| or two. Founders are still gambling... even if YC gives
| better odds than others.
|
| Again, VC has it place, as does YC. I'm not saying nobody
| should do it - I'm saying they should do it as a fully
| informed decision.
| [deleted]
| nilsbunger wrote:
| This is very wrong. VCs don't control the game at all and
| their economics come from the few huge outcomes where
| founders also have a life changing outcome. Also,
| gambling has a negative expected value, while a good team
| starting a company has a positive expected value.
|
| Startups are a high risk game but no one says you have to
| play it.
| yaseer wrote:
| > we should acknowledge that it embraces and encourages the
| high-risk/high-reward model, which should be entered into
| with open eyes
|
| We were W21. I would argue one of YC's main goals is to
| reduce the risk to founders, and enable starting startup more
| accessible to those with the right skills, regardless of
| circumstance.
|
| Getting into YC guarantees a certain minimum amount of
| funding and essential support, which not everyone outside SV
| has access to. It's commonplace to see people quit high
| paying jobs, and start businesses whilst married with
| children (the old narrative of 20-something male dropout is
| no longer the norm). This all happens because YC creates a
| platform that reduces risk for founders.
| askura wrote:
| Congrats to the team. It's proven itself beyond useful time and
| time again.
| foxhop wrote:
| [deleted]
| 21723 wrote:
| It's almost too old for itself.
| kobejean wrote:
| Congrats!
| [deleted]
| dgellow wrote:
| Congrats to everybody contributing to YCombinator and HN success
| :)
| cosmiccatnap wrote:
| motohagiography wrote:
| Happy birthday, and thank you. Even though I have a bit of an HN
| addiction, it has helped me sound out _a lot_ of different ideas
| and put them up for challenge in a way that would not been
| possible otherwise, and doing startup school in '18 was a
| significant personal and professional turning point. It's not
| just startups, users, and customers, you've enriched a lot of
| lives.
|
| 17 years seems like a long time, but looking back, it's not, and
| it's an example of how much all these things can grow. Cheers to
| another 17 years of finding and making things people want.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| What a badass organization. Congrats!
| fuckycombinator wrote:
| tickerticker wrote:
| Happy birthday!
|
| When I was 17, I: (a) was immortal (b) knew everything (c) had
| boundless energy (d) was out to change the world (e) did not know
| myself.
|
| Fifty years later, I am * finite * humble * energetic in spurts *
| want to teach and encourage * still learning about myself.
|
| Y Combinator, my best BD wish is that all your mistakes will be
| instructive. <3
| noduerme wrote:
| Jeez, I feel old.
| thatwasunusual wrote:
| I _am_ old! :(
| tus666 wrote:
| When did this comment board start out of interest?
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2007-02-19&p=1
| Semaphor wrote:
| Nope ;)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-09
| mkr-hn wrote:
| Classic off-by-four error.
| imrehg wrote:
| Confirmed by moving the date back by one day as well :)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-08
| [deleted]
| tmvnty wrote:
| 09 Oct 2006, and you can view the top posts from everyday at
| https://hnhd.io/
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